Electric car anyone?

Hi all
We are hoping to buy an electric car next year, hopefully the prices will have come down by then. For this reason we are about to build a driveway in front of our house so we can have the electric socket installed in order to charge the car.
DH estimates it will cost 3p per mile to run in comparison to 20p as per petrol.
Hopefully it will all work out, a bit of an expensive project with the porch and driveway built in!

Whatever your opinion on “green energy” electricity including electric cars is the future, renewable power is the direction the government is going. So we all have to “go with the flow”, do bear in mind that petrol or diesel cars will now be less desirable as EVs increase and pollution free zones will increase, so in the longer term they are a good bet.

My only experience of electric cars is when I looked out of my landing window and saw the plumber had plugged his BMW into my external power socket to charge it while he was servicing my boiler. Bloody Cheek !

My son’s Nissan Leaf has the option to turn on an artificial engine sound. He uses it in built up areas to make it safer for pedestrians.

How wonderful for your DD to win a car Franbern

Someone high up in the production of Electric cars once told me that they are so silent that it’s deemed dangerous and the manufacturers have to create some noise ?

When I last changed my car out (2015), I did look for a small hybrid - but they did not exist (purchased a Hyundai i10). I have been told because of the amount of room required for batteries.

Several years back, when the first electric cars were appearing (3004/5?), one of my daughters contacted me to say she has been told she has won an electric car - but it can only be delivered to an address inside the M25 (where I live she li ed in Somerset). Must say she was very dubious about this and said she was half expecting some little model car to be turn up.

I took delivery = and it was a real car, quite small. Deliered nto my garage and plugged into leccie. She advertised it - and in due course said a gentleman wanted to come to have a look, etc. She had checked out his credentials, all above board.

It was late October, and he came late afternoon. We went into my garage and he said he would like to take it for a test drive and he sat in drivers seat and me next to him. I had unplugged the charger just before he arrived. He turned the key -and nothing happened............ Turned it again - and again. We were both puzzled, I knew it was fully charged. Then he tried the lights and they worked perfectly!!!

At that point he (not me) realised that due to it being silent, it was working - but we could not hear anything!!!!
Did his test drive - all fine - and he purchased it, giving my daughter and her family a much needed money boost. Was quite unnerving, moving around in a totally silent vehicle.!!!

Washerwoman

Sorry that last bit was a typo !And actually if we have installed solar panels isn't it better that we use them fully and convert that energy to power our cars now we have them ?If their manufacture comes with an environmental cost at least make it count.Like using our clothes,furnishings etc for longer and getting the most out of them.I am struggling to see why anyone would be negative about that.

I agree with you Washerwoman of course it’s better that you use your solar panels to generate electricity . My argument was that there is no such thing as 100% “Green” energy. Whether it be in the manufacture, the production, the conversion or the eventual removal /destruction . There is an environmental cost.

Sorry that last bit was a typo !And actually if we have installed solar panels isn't it better that we use them fully and convert that energy to power our cars now we have them ?If their manufacture comes with an environmental cost at least make it count.Like using our clothes,furnishings etc for longer and getting the most out of them.I am struggling to see why anyone would be negative about that.

No money for a new car, but if I could afford it I think I would get a hybrid. We have quite a few charging points where I live, in the street lamps. A lot of properties in this area don't have off street parking. Ah well, hope my '04 Astra estate keeps going!

Well it would seem both EV and Hydrogen technologies have a way to go.Fuel cells - yes they are greener than lithium batteries but currently as much as 95% of hydrogen fuel production comes from natural gas or biomass and is CO2 intensive in the process.Also as hydrogen fuel is dense and highly flammable up to date manufacturing of vehicles to make them safe is more costly and complex.And as in normal car manufacture mining of Platinum necessary.So not without its environmental cost.
Let's hope the technology moves on rapidly in both FC and EV vehicles so we see possibly more of both and whichever wins out environmentally becomes the norm.Already EV battery tecnology has improved in life time,and predicted to be 10 -20 years soon.Extraction of hydrogen will be by other means than the Steam Methane Reforming from natural gas. In the meantime at least I choose electric over diesel or petrol for air quality and noise,and with no other alternative currently on offer remain open and hopeful for future development. Hence why for the first time ever our vehicles were bought via a lease scheme as we felt things are changing .Maybe there will be a time where there's a combination of both on the roads.Either way is fine as long as I don't have to sit behind something chucking out horrible fumes or see that smog on a lovely summer's day.Bring it on !


As EV battery life isimproving

I can also charge during the day as we have solar panels and therefore free electricity.

I have a hybrid and love it. I live in a rural area and have to drive to the nearest village, I can get there and back twice on one charge. I charge overnight on the low rate. I am not yet at the point where I would go all electric, I like having the backup of petrol and the choice of either or both fuels when I am driving.

Furret

Then I think you should do some research before you dismiss something you clearly know little about.

I know a lot more about it than you think. I just don’t wear the “green” blinkers . How do you get your electricity if it isn’t from the grid and it’s not solar either? Just curious .

I got the new Toyota CHR hybrid the week before lockdown (bad timing!) and love it. I don't do many miles but so far it seems very economical - I think I've only filled it up 3 times. Time will tell when my husband gives his car back in 6 months and he drives it most of the time but he likes it too. We didn't think totally electric was a viable option yet due to charging points and how far they run between charges.

Then I think you should do some research before you dismiss something you clearly know little about.

Apologies, Read not real .

I don’t have a degree in anything Furret what ever gave you that (sarcastic) idea? And if you real my post again I only used solar panels as one example .

I don’t wash with these “offset” ideas. It’s no different from a celebrity planting a few trees in “payment” for their flights in private jets.

Your degree in Environmental Sciences is clearly out-of-date gillybobs. There are many renewables available to produce “green” [sic] energy.

All energy production comes at a cost. Mine is offset to be carbon neutral.

Furret

gillybob

Furret

My electricity is 100% green.

Sorry Furret but that simply isn't possible .

Yes it is.

It seriously isn't Furret .

Even if you have solar panels they did not build themselves and the melting and purifying of the Silicon needed for the solar panels to work calls into question the entire "green energy" argument, meaning there is a large carbon debt to be repaid before the panel can be considered "green" which some scientists argue will be long after they have stopped working anyway....... and then you have the whole question of getting rid of them.

DS2 has just taken delivery of the new Honda e and he is delighted with it. He can charge it at his home, at his workplace ( City hospital) and local supermarket.

He has had a hybrid, Honda CRZ, for years, and will keep it for longer journeys.

It does seem the way forward - hopefully!!

One of my sons has been telling me about hydrogen, kittylester. Also, I saw James May talking about it on tv a couple of years ago.

I will now research further how hydrogen cells work and wait for my car to become obsolete!

Almost all of our charging up is done at home and when our solar panels are generating which is surprisingly often even on cloudier days. We can see from the monitor when we are self generating and when we are pulling off the grid.Hence electric works for us.
In answer to the regeneration mode it doesn't fully charge the car rather as today I left to do local errands with 60 miles range and returned with 56.In reality I did twice the mileage but using the kick back lever as I braked gradually and came down it hills it has a dynamo effect that transfers that power back into the battery.It becomes 2nd nature to drive so that happens and only if you've actually driven an EV does it make sense. Or so I found!

My OH wants to use the electricity we generate from our solar panels to run an electric car but I’m hoping he will hold off for another couple of years.
In the Los Angeles there are loads of charging stations, many of them free of charge. No doubt that will eventually happen here.
My concern is what happens now if you are miles from civilisation and run out of charge?